The lawsuits, including InNova Patent Licensing, LLC v. Facebook Inc., No. 2:12-cv-00363, were filed June 21, 2012, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall.

The federal patent claim focuses on an InNova patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,018,761, that covers technology used to differentiate between spam e-mail messages and those that users actually want to receive. The lawsuit alleges that the defendant companies have used InNova's patented e-mail technology for years without permission.

"E-mail inboxes are inundated with hundreds of spam messages every day, and InNova's technology helps to sort out what messages really should be delivered to users," says Christopher Banys, lead counsel for InNova and head of The Lanier Law Firm's national intellectual property practice. "Our goal is to help protect InNova's valuable intellectual property, and to stop the defendants from illegally profiting from our client's innovations."